He says he hit the jackpot. 
And he has the best home-manager and personal/work consultant around.
We are very appreciative of each otherâs strengths. He tells the kids that I am smarter than him, and I tell them that heâs the hardest worker I know, and they should be more like him. I mean, itâs a joke, because he is extremely smart, I just did better at school than he did. 
That is very high, especially for the time (or does that include the local community college?). Or was going to college a way for some of the men to get deferment from mandatory military service at the time?
When I went to high school (there was no longer military conscription at the time), about a third of graduates went to four year colleges â mostly in-state publics. Many of the rest did go to community college. The school offered about seven AP courses / tests.
After I went to college, I found out that admissions at the time used a formula that gave a lot of weight to the (then required) three Achievement Tests (later known as SAT subject tests). Since I did well on those, that was to my advantage in admission. But it seemed odd to me that not every A student in the associated classes got 700+ on those tests.
Iâll play.
Class of '94. Private HS in Memphis, TN. 1300 SAT/31ACT. NMF. 3.77 GPA. Eagle Scout with Six Palms. Our high school did not weight GPA at the time, so you were effectively penalized for taking APs. 17 in a class of 104. 9 APs (including teaching myself AP US Government, I scored a 5).
Admitted â Yale, Emory, Tulane (1/2 scholarship), Georgia (in-state tuition), SMU (Hunt Scholarship), and Vanderbilt
Waitlisted â Rice
Rejected â Harvard
I went to SMU.
I am smarter than my husband and he tells everyone â proudly. It doesnât take away from his professional success or competence or ego in general to recognize my abilities.
I love this topic! You folks actually remember your GPA and test scores? Impressive!
I graduated in 1980 from a small college prep high school that my single mom could barely afford. Guessing that I had around a 3.9 GPA, took the only 2 AP classes available (Calc and Literature). No clue what my SAT was but I was a good test taker, so probably pretty high.
ECs included 4 years of varsity cross country and track, team captain. Principal bassoon in a well regarded youth symphony.
I applied to 2 schools: Cal Berkeley and UC Davis. Accepted to both. And get thisâŠI opted to go to Davis because I wanted to move away from home due to an unhealthy family environment.
As other posters above have mentioned, it was possible to pay my own way through the UC System by working summers and being incredibly frugal. The cost of a college education and the cost of living today continues to astound me.
I graduated first in my class - less than 100 students. A small public school in the city. My SAT scores were mediocre, but I got a full tuition scholarship at Temple University. Temple gave the valedictorian from every city public HS this scholarship.
Wow, that would be nice if they still did that.
Class of '76, third in a class of 650. 2 APs, NHS, forensics team, 99 percentile SAT. Got a scholarship to beauty school and went. BF from high school needed a roommate for second semester at U-Mich so university housing wouldnât move a girl she hated from a triple down the hall into her double. Begged me to come for just that one semester, so I took leave from beauty school to help her out, but my future husband* lived on her hall, so I stayed to graduate. Phi Beta Kappa. Been with/married to that gorgeous boy going on 47 years.
*I had money from working in a bookstore to pay for that one semester, but that was it. When future DH learned I was leaving, he panicked and went to the FA office to see if there were any scholarships I could apply for. The one I was awarded paid my entire wayâtuition, room & board, plus book stipend. I never paid U-M another dime after that first semester. Also, first semester tuition for three three-credit courses was $683.
Some went to community college but the vast majority then got bachelors degrees. I do not think it matters why some students decided to go to college. Fact isâŠthey went.
This was an upper middle class suburban high school and even back then, many of the parents were college degree holders, and professionals of some sort (our suburb had a lot of resident doctors, dentists, lawyers and the like). Education was highly valued, and the expectation was that the kids would go to college.
In the remaining 10%, some went to vocational schools, and some enlisted in the militaryâŠand some got married and worked in their homes.
Graduated late 70âs from a highly regarded public school. 1 B (Art) in HS, ranked 4/200+. SAT 1480 (1560 concorded). HS Varsity Soccer and Golf (4 letters). Sports Editor school paper. Worked summers as dishwasher, prep/grill cook, server. EA admitted Brown; RD admitted Cornell and Yale; rejected Harvard and Princeton. Attended Yale.
Our school was very well resourced (observatory, planetarium, radioactive lab, greenhouse) and had many professional/highly educated families. Out of classes of 220 to 250, we sent students routinely to Ivies, Duke, UVA, UM, Swat, Amherst/Williams. State flagship was/is very good, esp in engineering.
I went to CSULB. I was an uncool nerd. Luckily, I have evolved into the coolest 50+ year old ever. 
In high school, I was a decent student, but math was my weak point.
For kicks, I have literally just pulled out my high school transcript. Freshman year, I got a C in Algebra. So I took Algebra Concepts and got a B. Then I did Algebra again as a sophomore, and got a D first semester, and an F second semester. 
I really should have just stuck with Algebra as a Freshman. As a second semester Junior, I took Algebra again and got a B. 
I took Geometry as a senior. I got a D+ and a C.
I attended CC. I was put on academic probation because I ditched too many classes and went to the beach. Itâs a good thing that happened, because I finally got my act together. In college, I struggled to complete my required math class. I took a class called Liberal Studies math, and the only thing I remember is that we learned how to recombine the letters in the word Australia. I took it C/NC and passed!
The next year, the college eliminated that course as valid for the degree. So phew! Good thing I took it when I did.
I only applied to one college in order to graduate, but before that, I earned credits at a variety of CSUs (CSUN, CSUF, CSUDH), including a semester abroad that changed my life profoundly. Finally, after 6 years, I was the proud recipient of a BA.
Iâm kind of amazed that I am even on College Confidential, tbh 
Edit: I never took an ACT or SAT. And when I graduated, my GPA was only 3.0 because of my math grades. If I am honest, I would have gone completely ballistic with my kids if they did what I did, either in high school or in college.
This would make a good movie!
Midwest high school. I donât remember my exact GPA but over 4. Top 10/300ish. âOnlyâ 1390 SAT. I got into Penn, Michigan (safety school with rolling admissions), and University of Rochester. Waitlisted at Williams and Duke (probably because they took several from my High school ED).
Oh goodnessâŠ
Graduated from HS 1981, the only high school in my town, one of 3 in the county. I think I was 12/121? No AP courses were offered, I was a band geek , Natl Honor Society. There werenât tutors, trips, enrichment, etc. A âgifted and talentedâ program was started but failed bc transportation costs (to a satellite state school 40 min away) were too high.
I was a 4.0 student, you know, That Girl With Glasses. I was a National Merit finalist so I think my SATs were good; I didnât apply for scholarships bc my folks thought they had enough to pay for college and we shouldnât take money other people might need. My high school did not have guidance counselors; we picked schools by word of mouth and what older kids had done.
Most of my classmates went to state schools or jail. I applied to two small LACs after touring 4 and got in to both. (had wanted to join the CoastGuard but my wise father had thoughts) Applied to two grad schools and got in to both. My husbandâs great-uncle gave us a wedding gift big enough to cover grad school if I compressed my schedule, so I did (we were married the summer between college&grad school for me)
DH was a recruited athlete at the LAC, with no academic skills (like how to study, how to take notes, etc) and it almost finished him off. But of the two of us, heâs had the much more impressive career. Itâs not how you start, itâs how you finish!
Love this so much!
So fun. I graduated in 1992 from a top public high school in the Bay Area. I wasnât much of a studentâundiagnosed ADHD. Maybe my GPA was 3.1 or 3.2, I donât remember. My SAT was 1100, I think. I was a serious dancer and that was my main EC. I spent 3-4 hours a day dancing, 6 days a week.
I applied to 4 schoolsâSDSU, University of San Diego, University of the Pacific and Chico State. I was accepted to all of them and went to SDSU.
But I found my jam in college. I was a journalism major and Iâve built a career as a writer and creative director. I work for a place that typically values very highly educated people ,but they also love a hard worker who knows her stuff 
I get the math thing. After being so great at math in earlier years I just didnât understand Algebra. Took in 8th grade and got a C. Took again in 9th and luckily things clicked. Still never really liked math after that. So glad my daughter takes after her Dad and not me.
2.79, no APs.
1070 SAT - took four times and I got a 410 on the English the 4th time.
I got in everywhere if I recall - UCSC, BU, Syracuse, ASU - and some more.
I was full pay. Syracuse admitted me into Arts & Sciences - I needed a 3.0 to transfer into Newhouse which thankfully I had and then some.
This was mid-80s.
I love Syracuse. When touring with my daughter, I kept saying that I wanted to go there 